The Lost Band of Brothers Read Online Free PDF Page A

[Administration] Branch I was unable to get the forms directly to Eastern Command. It has to go round the Corps tip and they take a week. So HO won’t get it until too late unless you can tell them what has happened. The thing arrived here late in the first place, and they sat on it in the office. My God, they are awful. Anyway, I’ve been recommended a second time, and could you tell them that? If I come up for an interview, we’ll have a terrific dinner. I’m feeling much too well, terribly fit and nothing to do … 2

    Whilst others dragged their heels, officers elsewhere worked in haste to carry out Churchill’s orders to strike back, to mount that all-important first raid across the Channel. To this end, a further special Independent Company, No 11, was formed on 14 June and began training around Hamble and Southampton Water. Less than three weeks after Colonel Dudley Clarke had his ‘commando’ idea whilst walking home from the War Office, Churchill’s order became reality. Operation Collar was mounted on the night of 23/24 June 1940. It achieved little, claimed just two German lives and became dangerously close to making the concept of cross-channel raiding a risible joke. Its only British casualty was Colonel Dudley Clarke himself.
    The objective of Operation Collar was to cross over at night to the Hardelot, Stella Plage and Berck areas of Boulogne by fast motor boat and make several landings to obtain information on German defences, destroy enemy outposts and kill or capture enemy soldiers. The raiders, under Major Ronnie Tod with Colonel Clarke along as Observer, would land at midnight, spend no more than eighty minutes ashore and then return by sea. Initially 180 men of No 11 Independent Company were detailed to take part in the raid but a shortage of weapons – there were just forty tommy guns in the whole of Britain at the end of June 1940 – and suitable raiding craft reduced that number to 120 after the failure of two of the engines of half-a-dozen air–sea rescue craft borrowed for the night from the Air Ministry. The sea was calm, the sky cloudy with a light north-easterly breeze. Mid-Channel a rum ration was issued to the black-faced raiders. Soon after that the naval commander became unsure of his position until a sudden German searchlight obligingly revealed that he was about to motor straight into Boulogne harbour. They swung away into the safety of the darkness and landed a little further down the coast among sand dunes.
    Tod and his men disappeared purposefully into the darkness. Nothing was heard for a while. Then Tod returned, armed with a tommy gun with which he was less than familiar. As Clarke disembarked to warn him that a darkened vessel had been seen nearby, a German bicycle patrol was reported moving along the beach towards them. As they prepared to open fire, Tod managed to knock the magazine off his unfamiliar weapon. It fell to the ground with a clatter. The Germans heard the noise and opened fire. Colonel Clarke was knocked back into the boat by the impact of a bullet that caught him behind the ear. He was not seriously wounded.
    Major Tod’s men returned without loss, and waded out into a rising tide to clamber back into their boat. They then headed back out to sea. Elsewhere, two boats had landed among the sand dunes. One had bumped into a German patrol and been fired on without loss and had not returned fire. The second had seen nothing; a third boat of armed raiders had not actually landed but attempted to stalk a seaplane which had then suddenly taken off over their heads like a startled goose. A fourth had landed at Merlimont Plage, 4 miles south of Le Touquet. Here they stumbled upon a large hotel surrounded by barbed wire which, they thought, might have been some sort of local headquarters. An enemy patrol of two soldiers was encountered. Both were killed with sten-gun fire from a range of 15 yards. Despite post-war claims that a German corpse was carried back to the